Hey! I'm fairly new here, but I know the Andy (the admin). Just been having some trouble, so thought I'd see what this forum can do.

My Dad's been nagging me to help fix his PC recently, so I gave it a shot.

The PC was completely eaten alive by trojans, so I deleted his only partition and reinstalled Windows XP, SP2, and all the drivers that I usually would have to.

He started moaning that the internet was down. It was because the Ethernet was in the wrong network card. I sighed, put it where it should be, and boasted I'd fixed it.

The next day, the internet was down again. The internet ethernet had fallen out the Router. I again, sighed and reconnected it.

But today, he told me he was getting no sound.

They way things were going, I thought it would be "Mute all" in Volume Control was on, but I got an odd error message about installing drivers. I'd never had to do this in all the experience I've had restoring this PC (it happens a lot) but I just reinstalled the RealTek drivers and I could access Volume Control again.

But, still. No sound. Unmuted, played with all the setting I could think of, checked the speakers on another PC, and the drivers are definately all there.

We found one disk, but we're not sure which PC is came from... which helps.

When we let Windows automatically install the drivers, it found the RealTek drivers and installed them.

The Speakers themselves are plug-in and play standard speaker, with the "Time PCs" logo on them, since this is where we got the PC.

The PC has mainly Athlon and nVidia components, but the Sound Card is a mystery to me, and I can't even trace the PC model on the Time website to find out what drivers I need, since they took it off and any correspondence would just return the advice "it's old, buy a new one".

You can use a utility like Astra32 or SiSoftware Sandra. Both have shareware versions and are easy to find with Google. They will tell you which hardware is in your computer and for what hardware you are missing drivers. Also, if you let Windows Update or Microsoft Update install newer versions of the drivers for you, you should try rolling back to the older drivers. A lot of the time driver updates from Microsoft actually end up breaking things. If the audio is Realtek, they usually have the drivers on their website and one of the applications I mentioned above should give you a model number to look for.

If there is a problem with a device, it is listed in the hardware tree. Also, the problem device has a symbol that indicates the type of problem:

• A black exclamation point (!) on a yellow field indicates the device is in a problem state. Note that a device that is in a problem state can be functioning.• A problem code explaining the problem is displayed for the device.• A red "X" indicates a disabled device. A disabled device is a device that is physically present in the computer and is consuming resources, but does not have a protected-mode driver loaded.• A blue "i" on a white field on a device resource in Computer properties indicates that the Use automatic settings feature is not selected for the device and that the resource was manually selected. Note that this does not indicate a problem or disabled state.• A green question mark "?" in Device Manager means that a compatible driver for this device is installed, indicating the possibility that all of the functionality may not be available. Note that this applies only to Windows Millennium Edition (Me).

When you view device information on your Windows-based computer using Device Manager, you may see an unknown device listed next to a yellow question mark. Determining the cause of this unknown device can be difficult, because there are few indications of what could be creating it. This article describes the possible causes of an unknown device being listed in Device Manager.

The Device Does Not Have a Device DriverYou Are Using a Windows 98 or Windows 95 Device DriverUnrecognized Device IDFaulty Hardware or Firmware

I'm grateful for all the replies. Sorry I haven't been back to give updates, but I've been at work or asleep all weekend.

There was a [!] on the Audio drivers, so I Uninstalled and rebooted. Windows took over and automatically installed the RealTek drivers. This was before I even asked for help here.

I have also found no problems in the BIOS which a friend suggested, so I think it's most likely to be the incorrect drivers. Just can't determine what drivers I need!

I'll try Astra32, but programs like CPU-Z never really shows information on my sound card, on any PC, so I may just tell him to try starting over again if it gets nothing.

Since I've had to delete partitions and start from scratch so many times when that PC was shared between me and my brother, and never had this problem before, I think it may have something to do with the way my Dad handled the reinstalling. Maybe Windows will wake up and do what it's supposed to this time.

If this fails, I'll be back here .

Update: I ran Astra32, and the sound is nForce MCP-T by nVidia with ALC650, which is apparently by RealTek, which explains the auto-install of those drivers. I'm clueless with Sound Cards, since I've never needed to upgrade, update or install them, but I can't find the Drivers anywhere. Can someone tell me what Drivers I'm looking for, and whether this will fix the sound problems?

Update: I ran Astra32, and the sound is nForce MCP-T by nVidia with ALC650, which is apparently by RealTek, which explains the auto-install of those drivers. I'm clueless with Sound Cards, since I've never needed to upgrade, update or install them, but I can't find the Drivers anywhere. Can someone tell me what Drivers I'm looking for, and whether this will fix the sound problems?

There is a way to make a report in Astra, if you do that and post the results here it would be easier for us to help you. I should have suggested that earlier. Also, he wasn't talking about CPUz but there is another program on that website which also identifies hardware.

Also, KenOath: I wasn't attacking you or anything, I didn't mean for it to come off that way if it did.

Why is it that everyone blows everything out of proportion around here?

If I'm wrong: Okay, people make mistakes. I'm fine with being wrong sometimes, you do realize no one is infallable. I don't see the need to be attacked.
If someone else is wrong... or simply posts a suggestion that is only part of the answer: I'm not going to attack you, and no one else should either. Don't be so offended by everything.

I was just trying to make sure he knew what meant what, not trying to prove you wrong. That's what I meant when I was saying people think they're being attacked... I wasn't correcting you just to correct you, I was doing it so that he could get a better idea of what was wrong with his computer.